Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program

Background

The Republic of Chad is a large, sparsely populated, landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is home to more than 180 different ethnic groups who speak over 100 languages, with the official languages being Arabic and French.

Of a population of 16 million, nearly half (47%) live under the poverty line. 20% of Chadian children will not make it to their fifth birthday, and 40% of children suffer from stunting. On average, between the ages of 4 and 18, children in Chad spend no more than five years in school. The country also has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in central Africa, with 856 deaths for every 100,000 live births.

Chad grapples with security challenges associated with conflicts in bordering countries. The influx of refugees has increased pressure on the country’s limited resources. It is the largest refugee hosting country in West and Central Africa with more than 570,000 refugees - representing nearly 4% of its total population. In addition, there are around 300,000 internally displaced people in Chad.

Chad was ranked as the country most vulnerable to climate change in 2017. Chad is highly exposed to natural and human crises (floods, droughts, conflict), coupled with a highly vulnerable population and a low capacity to respond.

SASPP Activities

Current SASPP activities are anchored within the Refugees and Host Communities Support Project (PARCA), whose objective is to increase refugee and host community access to basic services, livelihoods, and safety nets. The Project also aims to expand safety net coverage through targeted cash transfers and productive inclusion activities to nearly 140,000 households, and to improve access to essential social services by rehabilitating existing structures or building new ones for almost 800,000 community members. The project is also focused on improving the social protection delivery system, including through the piloting of digital payments in the capital city and the development of a unified social registry, whose decree requires its use by government and humanitarian partners in their beneficiary identification processes.

Chad Refugees and Host Communities Support Project (PARCA)

Project duration: FY18 - ongoing

Financing:

• Initial financing of $60 million from IDA in FY18
• Additional financing of $75 million from IDA and $6 million from the SASPP MDTF in FY21

Note that an earlier project, the Safety Nets Project, also benefitted from SASPP financing ($ 5 million, FY17)

In FY22, the Government of Chad delivered a COVID-19 response cash transfer in N’Djamena with technical and financial support from the SASPP. SASPP funding was used to provide emergency cash transfers to 22,000 vulnerable households, distributed through contactless, electronic payments using mobile telephones. SASPP also supported, both technically and financially, a new ASP response for 14,000 newly arrived Cameroonian refugees, as well as 9000 households from within their host communities, in and around N’Djamena.